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After my post about what worked and didn't work in political advertising in 2010, a friend dropped me a note that said he found it interesting that back in 2008, people were all excited about text messaging programs, yet now it seems kind of dead. So I decided to elaborate a little bit on what I think is happening and go a little more in depth into why mobile is working so great. And, unlike some other posts or articles you might read, this one is not just about political marketing; some of us actually have other clients....

Text messaging is what I consider to be a necessary evil. I'm not writing about the send a text message to #1234 or #DONATE, because I believe those are expensive programs with a short life span. Any marketer should be collecting mobile numbers and sending text messages, however if that's your only mobile strategy you are DOA.

The next place a lot of people go to in their mobile strategy is Mobile Search which I think is great place to go to next. However, based on my experience, mobile search is about 10% of desktop volume and requires different tactics. Match type and creative strategies are vastly different as is your bidding and keyword strategies. If you think you can just export your desktop campaign and forget about it, you are wrong.

The game now is mobile display advertising and there are a few places you can go.

Apple has an awesome, yet expensive platform

Until Google finally absorbs AdMob, AdMob has the best rates and best results especially when it comes to CTR in mobile apps

Google of course has two tactics you can use. The first is display ads on mobile websites and the next place is ads in Apps. Display ads on mobile websites are not worth your time unless you like your current display ad's CTRs

The click thru rates and cost per clicks I've seen advertising in Apps are vastly superior than what I've seen on a decent display campaigns; far higher than what many people consider to be a strong CTR campaign of 0.23%. In fact, through Google, you can buy a Mobile Surge the details I outlined in a post on Michele Bachmann's famous State Fair campaign. Also, I believe that the geo-targeting is far more accurate on mobile phones than desktops and this allows you to precisely target people in a smaller radius.

Right now advertising on mobile Apps have superior CTRs, lower CPCs, better targeting, and you can send the clicks into any number of destinations including YouTube videos, App download link, mobile websites, Facebook, and etc. It is not simple at all and there are experts who can help with your strategies and campaigns. Basically, if you are relying on text messaging as your mobile strategy, you will be left behind THIS YEAR!

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

P.S. If you are anyone but a package goods, retailer QR Codes cause more problems than they are worth, but as usual Google has a solution called Goggles for you.

So, we launched a new great political advertising tactic called a Google Mobile Surge and surprisingly when compared to its older brother a Google Surge, the Mobile Surge over delivered on my expectations. Now unlike my original post on a Google Surge, its a little too early to give away how to tips, but I thought it would great to give you a little background on how we came up with this political tactic....

A few months ago, my co-worker Ryan and I had a call with Apple to learn about their iAd platform and even though we have several clients that have enough budget to extend their advertising to mobile, Apple told us that unless we agreed to spend high 6 to 7 figures in a month they wouldn't give us even a presentation on the capabilities. (yes - Apple refused to hit the damn <send> button on an email. Dear Apple, I love your devices but your sales force is seriously short sighted)

In the meantime, I kept researching Google's capabilities in the mobile space and I worked on several projects for other clients; what I learned was that Google has $150K+ per day in App advertising and I've noticed that you can expect 10% of your search volume to be available on mobile phones.

Now, if you hadn't noticed, Google automatically opts your campaigns into All Devices; now this seems harmless enough because unless you make a WAP ad your ads will only show on high end devices which is a decent way to extend your reach (I monitor the results and if not meeting client goals I will opt out of mobile).

Next up came the Michele Bachmann Campaign which as a consultant I love working on. They came to us with a strategy of promoting their new Jim The Election Guy video which hammered her opponent for taxing beer and reminded people at the glorious Minnesota State Fair.

Coming up with a desktop surge was easy. Promoting the commercial to Minnesota fair ground people while they are waiting in line for the State Fair food was genius. As I said in the article, imagine standing in line for your beer and you pull out your iPhone to have this ad delivered into the palm of your hand. Pure evil genius...

And we way over delivered on YouTube views for the ad and without giving away metrics, the CTRs were FANTASTIC and the CPCs were outrageously competitive for something that was worth far more than the CPM bids.

Yes I wrote CPMs bids - contrary to popular belief you can sometimes get cheap CPCs and great reach for a CPM bid.

Finally, in politics, I think the volume right now is in the Apps and not in the mobile search; that's not to say you should ignore mobile search, just expect better reach on the App side for now

The campaign is happy. We are thrilled and we are generating some buzz. Remember, like its older brother, the Mobile Surge is not for the small budgeted advertiser..Oh and those iAds? I'll wait for Apple's sales call when they figure out that they missed out on advertising dollars from all the small/medium advertisers - especially political ad dollars this season.

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